Trussville bladesmith to be featured on History channel’s “Forged in Fire”

TRUSSVILLE – A bladesmith from Trussville will be featured on this week’ episode of Forged in Fire.

Forged in Fire is a program broadcast by the History Channel. The network describes it as, “[an] original competition series hosted by weapons expert and U.S. Army and Air Force veteran Wil Willis, featuring world-class bladesmiths competing to create history’s most iconic edged weapons. In each episode, four of the nation’s finest bladesmiths come together to put their skill and reputations on the line, trying to avoid elimination and win the $10,000 prize. They use sweat, fire, force of will, and a well-equipped forge to turn raw material into authentic, fully functional implements of war. These weapons must stand up to a battery of strength and sharpness tests, as well as the critical assessment of our expert judges”

This week’s episode will feature a challenge in which the contestants compete in the making of Hattori Hanzo’s 1000-Layer Katana from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill.”

Mike Deibert, the contestant we will all be rooting for, has been living in Trussville for the last three years. Before that he and his family spent 13 years in Nicaragua where they ran a vocational school that taught blacksmithing, welding, bladesmithing and carpentry.

Deibert has always been an avid outdoors-man and spent much of his childhood, in northern Ohio, exploring the woods and searching for arrowheads. It was during his youth that he developed an affection for knives, “The very first knife I remember loving was a Parker Cutlery King Cobra. It was a miniature of the Buck 110, which was way too big for me at the time. Although it was a pocket knife I made a belt sheath for it from a leather comb sleeve. That knife never left my side. It was my key to adventure. All I had to do was to pick up its tiny weighty body and it would beckon me to go and cut some branches off my grandmother’s willow tree. On one tragic day the Cobra had fallen out of its sheath. I searched for hours in the field around my grandfather’s old manure spreader, which I was using as a pirate ship at the time. My uncle found it the next day, but I still recall the sadness I felt when I knew I had lost my favorite knife. That was when I knew I was hooked on knives. I still have all my childhood knives in a shoe-box at my parent’s house.”

Deibert’s enthusiasm for metal and bladed tools has served him well in his work blacksmithing; which is an outlet that allows him to be industrious and creative at the same time. As Deibert explained, “I love to create and when I took that first intro class to blacksmithing, I knew I was hooked. I started forging iron as a hobby about 16 years ago. The forge has always held a mysterious aura that seems to invite me to be creatively dangerous. Making a decorative object gives me great satisfaction, but making a tool from carbon steel makes me feel like a true craftsman. When I discovered that I could make knives in the forge that is when my blacksmithing took on a whole new dimension. Combining wood, brass, steel and metallurgy gives me great joy and there are few things that satisfy me more than the feel of a freshly finished knife in my hand and the steady pace at which it glides through a fallen branch.”

Forged in Fire appears on the History Channel. The episode featuring Deibert will air on Wednesday at 8 p.m. central time.